Turnbull As The Terminator: The Progressive Malcolm Myth That Just Won’t Die

In the original Terminator movie, soldier Kyle Reese goes to great lengths to kill the cyborg assassin sent from the future to eliminate Sarah Connor.

mrReese throws pipe bombs during a car chase which explode the Terminator’s truck. The killing machine’s flesh is burnt away but it does not relent. Reese hammers the Terminator with a metal pipe and throws another pipe bomb, this time into its abdomen. The Terminator explodes but survives, now a one-armed legless torso still in pursuit of Connor.

Much the same thing is happening in Australian politics.

The myth of Progressive Malcolm has all the resilience of the Terminator. The long list of columnists who have written pieces attacking this myth have all invoked the spirit of Kyle Reese.

There’s no shortage of such myth busting pieces. Please enjoy this selection:

The ‘Turnbull Greens’, those who will vote Greens but preference Malcolm, are often cited to say current polls underestimate the coalition vote because they use preference flows based on Abbott’s 2013 election.

Despite the inevitable disappointments of his young Prime Ministership and the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Malcolm remains a great hope for many progressive Australians.

See this cartoon representation of the tenacity of the Myth:

You might ask, well if this battery of opinion pieces hasn’t destroyed the myth, why bother trying again? Isn’t there a saying about doing the same thing, expecting a different result, and insanity?

What if previous attempts all suffered the same structural problem? What if they were too one-sided in their assessment of Progressive Malcolm?

Thus I present to you a balanced, comprehensive and nuanced assessment of the arguments both for and against the motion ‘Prime Minister Malcolm Bligh Turnbull is progressive’ in a wide range of policy areas.

IMAGE: Takver, Flickr.

Immigration and Asylum Seekers

For: Turnbull once said he was concerned about asylum seekers on Nauru and Manus.

Against: As opposition leader in 2009, Malcolm Turnbull said “Only a Turnbull government can stop the boats and secure our borders”. Around the same time he promised to reintroduce Temporary Protection Visas and said Australia had become a “soft target” for people smugglers.

As Prime Minister he has endorsed the harshest aspects of Abbott’s immigration policy. He’s backed the Border Force Act, legislating up to two years’ jail for speaking out about human rights abuses on Nauru and Manus. He deported the traumatised Abyan, an act condemned as “grotesque”, “inhumane” and showing a “complete disregard for… the rule of law”. He’s advocated discriminating against Muslim refugees in Syria in preference for Christians. He supports the return 267 of refugees, including 37 babies, to concentration camps on Nauru and Manus.

(IMAGE: Beth Cortez-Neavel, Flickr)

National Security, Defence, Government Transparency and Civil Liberties

Against: According to political editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, Peter Hartcher, Turnbull “has strongly reaffirmed the government’s policy of “stopping the boats”, embraced all aspects of the Abbott foreign policy, and… delivered a defence white paper that, in all main elements, is the same one Abbott had under way”. In other words, he’s started an arms race with China because, you know, arms races usually end well – especially ones with a much stronger rival.

As Communications Minister in 2014, Turnbull introduced mandatory data retention laws into the Parliament. He supports ASIO laws which include up to 10 years jail for ever reporting on special intelligence operations.

He wants to reinstate the Australian Building and Construction Commission which was opposed by Labor back in 2013 for denying basic civil liberties. Professor George Williams and Nicola McGarrity have said the commission’s investigatory powers “have the potential to severely restrict basic democratic rights such as freedom of speech, freedom of association, the privilege against self-incrimination and the right to silence”.

Turnbull has appointed arch-conservative Andrew Nikolic as chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. Mr Nikolic is all for stronger counter-terrorism powers for police and intelligence agencies. He has said the threat of terrorism makes civil liberties “redundant” and argued opposition to new counter-terrorism powers amounts to “impractical nonsense”.

He has backed Abbott’s destructive and pointless $160 million plebiscite plan, designed to banish marriage equality to the Never-Never.

He pandered to the extreme right of his party in calling for a review into the Safe Schools LGBTQI program. He failed to condemn the homophobic garbage spouted by Senators Bernardi and George Christensen.

Education

For: He thought Hilary Swank was a pretty good teacher in the film “Freedom Writers”.

In December 2015, Prime Minister Turnbull announced $650 million in cuts to Medicare over four years. Doctors and pathology companies are saying this will mean co-payments of around $30 for things like pap smears, blood tests, MRIs and urine tests.

Meanwhile he described Labor’s proposal of a 50 per cent renewable energy target by 2050 as “reckless”, approved creation of one of world’s largest coal ports, near the Great Barrier Reef, appointed Australia’s first wind farm commissioner, and ruled out a shift to emissions trading.

Indigenous Affairs

Against: On the other hand, Turnbull didn’t cry when he voted very strongly for the Northern Territory Intervention. This was the same intervention that suspended the Racial Discrimination Act and led to an increase of 500 per cent in reports of self-harm or suicide by Indigenous children and a large spike in the number of Aboriginal children in out-of-home care. Nor did he shed a tear when he voted against increasing Aboriginal land rights.

(IMAGE: Ben Hosking, flickr).

Political Donations

For: He once refused a political donation. It was a Yoho Diabolo and he couldn’t think of any use for it.

Against: As Minister for the Environment, Turnbull invested $10 million in a Russian/Swiss rain-making technology just before an expensive election campaign. There was no evidence the technology worked, but irrefutable evidence the rain-making company was partly owned by Rupert Murdoch’s nephew, who makes large donations to Turnbull’s fundraising group, the Wentworth Forum.

Science and Technology

The Turnbull government is slashing funding to the CSIRO, resulting in the loss of 350 jobs in two years. This will include 110 positions at the Oceans and Atmosphere division and a similar reduction in the Land and Water division. In other words, Turnbull is ramping up the government’s ideological crusade against climate science.

Women

In other news, Malcolm Turnbull said of the 2014 Budget, “I support unreservedly and wholeheartedly every element in the Budget”.

In NSW, since 2014, the number of refuges specialising in cases of domestic violence has dropped from 78 to 14. Since becoming PM, Turnbull announced $100 million for a ‘women’s safety package’. Yet only $5 million of this package went to crisis accommodation.

(IMAGE: Christian Haugen, Flickr)

The Economy

For: If he had his way he would turn Australia into a nation of communes linked into a highly sophisticated barter network. Or maybe I misinterpreted him.

His interpretation of the Global Financial Crisis is one of the most thoroughly ideological and totally wrong you’ll ever hear: “The proposition that the Global Financial Crisis was caused by wicked neo-liberal governments deregulating their financial markets and ‘letting the free market rip’ is nonsense”. He then praised moves “towards more open markets and greater economic freedom, including greater free trade”.

Turnbull has lauded New Zealand Prime Minister John Key, who “has been able to achieve very significant economic reforms in New Zealand by… explaining complex issues and then making a case for them”. Reforms being code for Key’s increased GST, income tax cuts for the rich and weaker protections for workers.

It’s worth repeating Turnbull’s statement when Abbott introduced his grossly unfair 2014 Budget: “I support unreservedly and wholeheartedly every element in the Budget”.

As Prime Minister, Turnbull does nothing about the 38 per cent of large Australian and foreign companies which paid no tax in 2013-2014, but does lead us through a protracted debate about increasing the GST and is considering reducing company taxes yet again (they’ve already been slashed from 49 per cent in 1986 to 30 per cent in 2016). He has also increased attacks on the poor by proposing fines for unemployed and underemployed Australians.

In response to Labor’s attempts to reform negative gearing, the PM launched an Abbott-style scare campaign, even deploying Abbott’s exact phrase that Labor’s reforms would send a “wrecking ball” through the economy.

(IMAGE: Flickr, Danny Luong)

Industrial Relations

For: Malcolm’s second cousin’s wife’s friend’s boss’s uncle once met somebody from the working class.

Against: He voted for WorkChoices.

Over the many years since, Turnbull has voted very strongly against increasing the power of trade unions in the workplace. He backed the Trade Union Royal Commission and promised to make union power an election issue.

He has said that penalty rates are old fashioned and cutting them “inevitable”.

He has also repeated the myths that minimum wage rises “discourage employment” and argued unfair dismissal protection is a “tax on employment”.

Verdict

Though there were some strong points for the motion (patting a cow, advocating for gravity, having a female wife), the opposing arguments carry the day and it turns out Malcolm Turnbull is in fact not at all progressive.

Perhaps this piece will bounce right off Terminator Turnbull just like all the others.

Yet if nothing else, at least we can all sit back and enjoy another reference to the 1980s classic.

Here’s to a vision of the future when Australia finally crushes the Progressive Malcolm Myth once and for all.

Liam McLoughlin is a Sydney-based freelance writer keen on activism, satire and the arts. He blogs at Situation Theatre and tweets from @situtheatre. He majored in Psychology and wrote his Honours Thesis on Climate Justice.